


The Definition of Red (Natasha Romanoff Movie/Comic)

by aurora_ff



Category: Black Widow (Comics), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Ambiguous Black Widow Fandom, Black Widow (comic), Comics/Movie Crossover, Gen, Marvel 616/MCU Crossover, Marvel Cinematic Universe - Freeform, Post-Avengers (2012), Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Pre-Avengers (2012), Pre-Captain America: The First Avenger, Red in my ledger, What is Red
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-17
Updated: 2014-08-08
Packaged: 2018-02-09 06:25:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1972296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aurora_ff/pseuds/aurora_ff
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For all my narrative and poetic thoughts about Natalia Romanova, about her Red Ledger and the Red Room and the Red Star and all things Red in her life.</p><p>  <i>She was the definition of Red.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Definition of Red

She was the definition of Red.

So many names she kept dear. Natalia. Natalia Alianovna. Natalia Alianovna Romanov. Waves upon waves. A father. A fatherland. A whisper of a daughter to a motherland. Then the dearness to that mother.

So many names she twisted. So many names she used. So many veils and so many circumstances. So many palettes, yet they all ran crimson, in one secret way or another.


	2. Apple

The first red she knows is the red of an apple. A bearded man, an old soldier, juggles these by the three in front of her, and she laughs her child’s laugh, a piercing and wondrous cackle. 

She grasps at the fond speech he offers, she grasps at the ruby fruit, and that word for “red” isn’t far behind her babbling of the word for “father.”

Sometimes he tosses her in the air, too, and she has no fear.

She loves flying. Like those red, red apples.


	3. Ginger

The second red she knows is the red of her own hair.

Sometimes, serious men and severe women visit Papa to see her and the other daughters. The girls dress in identical black and must stand in a line as cold eyes pass over them.

She is not identical. Today she picked out a golden ribbon for her ginger tresses.

A man decorated with many gilded stars on crimson bands asks her to step from the line. His seriousness diminishes as he runs a gloved hand over her locks.

In the mother-tongue, the word for 'red' and the word for 'beautiful' as so alike. The man's lips spill one and then the other, weaving them together.

Papa is smiling, nodding.

She is chosen.


	4. Pain

The third red she knows comes from the scarlet bloom of pain.

At first, it is a twisted ankle when she landed wrong on a running backflip that the trainers made all the chosen girls practice. Then it is also a punch undeflected that bruises a rib. When she is healed from that, it is the ache of her own lungs and the frantic beat of her own heart as she is further conditioned.

The gymnasium's mats are the color of that pain, and all the girls and all the trainers refer to it as the "red room". Or maybe that is the name of the school itself. At the age of eight, she is never sure.

She is taught never to complain about the discomfort. The red is weakness leaving her body.


End file.
